Jeng Jeng

What would it be like if I were in their shoes? That’s the question I would revolve around today. I’ll be touching on yet another social media topic, but this time in China’s context.

The Great Firewall of China

I would say that the Internet is something essential to everyone regardless of any geographical factors. And yes, China is no different and is highly reliant on the Internet. In fact, it has the highest number of Internet users in the world to date, with over 700 million Internet users (Dilinger 2019). The Internet in China is often referred to as the “entertainment superhighway” as it is largely used for entertainment purposes with mobile smartphones being the primary link between the population and the Internet. However, with the Internet being a big thing for China and all, it is very much different from the Internet you and I know. How is it different you may ask?

The Chinese government believes that the Internet is something that they should have complete control over. With that, the Internet in China is very much protected by the Great Firewall under the “Golden Shield Project”. The Great Firewall acts as a censorship to block access to selected foreign websites that include politically sensitive terms, embarrassing news events, news reporting sites, political activism, religious sites, obscenity or pornography, criminal activity and many more “evil” cultures. It also aims to neutralize critical online opinion. Some of the popular foreign websites that have been blocked are Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia. The government claims that these restrictions and censorships exist to maintain social order and safeguard national security (News 2018). Although this legislative action has received many critics from the outside world, let us look at how it has impacted the lives of the people of China and how they actually perceive it.

Impacts of China’s Internet

We may think that the censorship is all negative and is restricting Internet freedom, but it has also positive sides that I would be discussing right now. Firstly, with the monitoring system heavily keeping hackers at bay, China’s Internet is a lot safer compared to the US. It has lower rates of malicious activities such as scams, bots and zombies. Without bot-infested computers, China also has a very low rate of spams. Additionally, users are also less prone to stumble upon pornography (Marsan 2019).

Moreover, the patriots view it as something appropriate for their country as it is still a developing one and that the tight monitoring can aid in maintaining social stability. The system has also cultivated a culture whereby the citizens do not demand for those contents, ie sensitive contents that have been censored in the first place. A survey was conducted on more than 10,000 generation Z users just to find that nearly 80% are contented with how things are and believes that their country is getting better day by day (Yuan 2018). Some also stated that China is in its best time in history and is doing so much better compared to countries embroiled in wars and riots.

Their people are contented with what they have despite the censorship because the Chinese apps “have got everything” and they “don’t need them (the censored sites)”. No Google? They have Baidu. No Facebook? They have Renren. No Youtube? They have YouKu. Other equivalent sites include Weibo as their Twitter, WeChat as their WhatsApp, Taobao as their eBay and the list goes on and on. Most of their people grew up with these Chinese sites and have already grown accustomed to them. They would still opt to use their Chinese apps even if they were given the chance to use the censored sites (Yuan 2018).

As a wrap, there are both positive and negative implications of China’s Internet and the Great Firewall. China’s homegrown apps and sites may be adequate for their people but there is still certainly a gulf with the rest of the world as the Chinese apps become useless as soon as they move abroad. Nonetheless, we can still agree that the Internet plays a major role for both China and the outside world, just with a slight difference.

Reference:

Dilinger, J 2019, List Of Countries By Internet Users, World Atlas, viewed 1 June 2019, <https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-20-countries-with-the-most-internet-users.html>

News, B 2018, The Great Firewall of China, The Washington Post, viewed 1 June 2019, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-great-firewall-of-china/2018/11/05/5dc0f85a-e16d-11e8-ba30-a7ded04d8fac_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4f482415d154>

Marsan, CD 2019, 10 ways the Chinese Internet is different from yours, Computer World, viewed 2 June 2019, <https://www.computerworld.com.au/slideshow/215549/10-ways-chinese-internet-different-from-yours/>

Let me get straight to the point, social gaming is an activity or game which creates a social interaction between its players. Most importantly, social gaming is a multiplayer thing. This is because it requires at least two players and above, as the name suggests, players cannot socialize in solitude (O’Neill 2019). Social gaming can be done both offline and online, as long as it creates a form of socialization. Examples of social games include card games, board games, video games, role playing games, multiplayer online games or even alternate reality games.

Moving into our digital age world, social gaming has been increasingly popular especially after the launching of social media platforms. Take for example the most popular one, Facebook. Facebook is one of the world’s biggest gaming platforms, with its top games having millions of players online each day (Agarwal 2018). Does FarmVIlle, Café World, Mafia Wars, Happy Aquarium or even Per Society ring a bell? These social games were one of the most popular ones back in 2009.

Remember Pet Society?

I used to an avid fan of Pet Society, a social-network game developed by Playfish. Truth be told, I actually signed up for a Facebook account way before I was eligible to do so. I signed up when I was around 11 years old while the eligible age was 13. And why did I do so? It was because of Pet Society. Watching my elder sister play made me want to be part of the game, the society as well, and that’s how I started creating my own account and owning my own pet. I had friends that were playing as well and we would send each other gifts, visit each other’s houses and interact with each other’s pets. Besides only interacting with my Facebook friends, I could also interact with other Pet Society players via the Pet Society Café. The Café is both a store and a social bonding hub where you could buy things or visit some random player’s houses and their pets. This is where you can meet other players around the world, make and add new friends or even leave them a personal note. I remember spending a huge amount of time playing Pet Society, trying hard every day to earn coins, earn experience points, visit other pets, decorate the house, cloth the pet and etc. However, this game addiction over Pet Society came to a stop when the game officially ended in June 2013 (Maiberg 2013).

Careful with the Social Gaming Addiction

Social gaming can be fun and all, but let’s face it, there’s always a flip side to everything. For the next part I will be touching on social gaming addiction and addressing how severe it can get if overlooked.

I’ll be using PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) as my example. It is multiplayer online shooting game which is very much inspired by the Hunger Games series and Battle Royale (Stuart 2018). It drops 100 players at a time into an enclosed space where they have to scavenge for weapons and other resources then try to kill each other and be the last player standing. To date, PUBG is increasingly popular and has already been downloaded over 100 million times on Google Play Store (Bhattacharya & Singh 2018). It has also been said to have crossed over to become almost a social communication channel. This is because players opt to utilize the in-app communication channel to not only communicate about things regarding the game, but also real life things that are not related to the game at all.

It may seem as a great way to socialize and interact, but it has also created severe cases of addiction and even death. A single game takes a minimum of half an hour and one could not possibly stop at just one game (How does PubG affect your life in real? 2018). It is extremely addictive and leaves the players wanting more, making them spend countless hours on the game.

There is also a case whereby a mother has blamed the death of her 13 year old son on PUBG. Her son was reportedly playing PUBG right before plunging to his death off a fourth-floor flat. He was trying to see if he could survive the fall alike that of the characters in PUBG (Cheng 2018).

All in all, I believe that social gaming, yes, it can bring positive impacts but only if it is played with moderation. Otherwise, the negative impacts are just way too scary to even imagine.

References:

O’Neill, N 2008, What Exactly are Social Games? Adweek.com, viewed 21 May 2019, <https://www.adweek.com/digital/social-games/>

Agarwal, R 2018, Top 23 Best Facebook Games of 2019, Beebom, viewed 21 May 2019, <https://beebom.com/best-facebook-games/>

Maiberg, E 2013, EA shuts down Sim City Social, The Sims Social and Pet Society June 14, Adweek.com, viewed 21 May 2019, <https://www.adweek.com/digital/ea-shuts-down-sim-city-social-the-sims-social-and-pet-society-june-14/>

Stuart, K 2018, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds – nihilistic, violent and the perfect game for our era, The Guardian, viewed 21 May 2019, < https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/jan/22/player-unknowns-battlegrounds-pubg-battle-royale>

Bhattacharya, A & Singh, K 2018, Charted: India’s obsession with Chinese online game PUBG, Quartz India, viewed 21 May 2019, < https://qz.com/india/1489469/tencents-pubg-is-driving-indian-gamers-crazy/>

How does PubG affect your life in real? 2018, Homeopathy Recovery, viewed 21 May 2019, <http://homeopathyrecovery.com/how-does-pubg-affect-your-life/>

Instead of looking up a proper dictionary for definitions or explanations, I actually found the definition from Urban Dictionary a lot more relatable in regards to fandom and fan activism. In simple terms, fandom is a group of people (or a cult of sleep-deprived people) who willingly spend their time obsessing over one or multiple comics, books, television shows, movies, video games, celebrities or even bands (Killer 2014). So if you like or have interest in something or someone, you are basically already considered a fan.

I AM A FAN

I, myself, is not a fan. But I guess I have been wrong all this while. I consider myself a fan of movies that I am interested in, especially those trilogies with prequels or sequels. What I would do after watching the first film is to buy all of the books and read them even before the production or release of the second film. I needed to know what happens after the first film and could not possibly wait until the movie is released. Some examples of books or movies I obsess over include The Hunger Game Trilogy, The Maze Runner series, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit Trilogy and Me Before You series. I always claim that I do not have the luxury of time to read as reading requires way much more time compared to watching the film, however, I still find myself being able to spare time to read (during my holidays that is). When I do read, I would be partially zoned out from the world, and spend hours binge reading.

If you think that is all there is to my movie obsessions, you are wrong. So after all the reading of the books and actually watching the movies, I would do something else and that is where the Internet comes in. I would search up Wikipedia, Fandom Wiki, reviews or articles etc. just to precisely know about every detail of the movie and make sure I do not miss out on any important information. Fandom, the One Wiki to Rule Them All is alike that of Wikipedia, just that it is mainly focused on everything about entertainment topics. To date, Fandom has over 400,000 Wikia communities and 200,000 unique users monthly (Nations 2018). The information on Fandom is crowdsoured by other hardcore fans like me, discussing literally every single detail from TV shows, movies, books, games, news stories, events, celebrities to characters.

Below are screengrabs of a particular character from the Lord of The Rings series by Fandom. It details out every single thing about the character which I am keen to know about.

(https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Arwen) 

Another interesting thing about reading the books and watching the movies is that you would find that the movies often stray away either a little or a lot from the books. So again, I would be reading about articles comparing the movie to that of the book via numerous websites. Below are some screengrabs comparing the differences between the Maze Runner books series to that of the movies.

(https://mazerunner.fandom.com/wiki/The_Maze_Runner_book_to_film_differences)

(https://www.cinemablend.com/new/10-Big-Differences-Between-Maze-Runner-Book-Movie-67300.html)

As a wrap, I do consider myself as a fan but not necessarily a hardcore one. And thanks to social media, it is able to create a networked platform for fans to communicate, discuss on a common topic or shared interest and exchange information.

References:

Nations, D 2018, Wikia's Fandom Is the Largest Entertainment Fan Website, LifeWire, viewed 20 May 2019, <https://www.lifewire.com/wikias-fandom-largest-fan-website-3486725>

Today we will be looking into crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, two of which may seem similar but mean something entirely different. However, setting the differences aside, they are both similar in terms of gathering mass-community for collaboration. 

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is actually derived from two words: crowd and outsourcing. Thus, crowdsourcing is a process of outsourcing information, knowledge, skills, talents or end products from the crowd, especially from online crowds. An easy and common example to illustrate what crowdsourcing is would be Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself is a free online encyclopaedia, created and edited daily by people around the world (Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge n.d.). In other words, it is a crowdsourced encyclopaedia.

Next, we have a web application and crowdsourcing platform known as Tomnod. It is a project owned by Colorado-based satellite company DigitalGlobe that uses crowdsourcing to identify objects and places using satellite images (Hershkovitz 2018). This group of volunteers use Tomnod for a number of purposes, one of which is to solve real-world problems such as locating refugee camps in Somalia, searching for the tomb of Genghis Khan, mapping the ruins after Typhoon Haiyan and searching for Malaysia Airline Flight 370. With the power of the crowd, the public is able to assist in the task by giving inputs and insights, rather than hiring or recruiting people to work on the task. This allows for faster results with greater accuracy (White 2017).

Crowdsourced Search Effort for Malaysian Airlines MH370

During the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines MH370 in 2014, it was a challenge for several countries to mechanically scan and analyse the vast oceanic area of 305,000 sq km. This is when Tomnod stepped in to help by offering satellite images out for public viewing and identification. The public were then asked to tag images that seem to contain airplane wreckage, floating life-raft, oil spills or anything helpful to that of the search of the missing plane (Ambani 2014). The project itself was able to harness over 8 million contributors working in synchrony to try and solve the problem.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding, as the name suggests, is a process of sourcing money or funds from the crowd. This process is commonly done on social media where friends or a group of people share a common campaign they support. It is a great way for people who do not have access to sources or are in need of large amounts of capital to raise the fund they need. This capital is normally raised through collective efforts by friends, family, customers or other investors.

Maker Mobile, Chumbaka’s Crowdfunded Project

I will be putting forward a personal example in regards to crowdfunding. My example is related to a Malaysian based crowdfunding platform, known as Webe Community. This platform enables Malaysians to pitch their projects onto a public forum and puts it up for public voting. If the project receives enough community support, the winning project can become a reality. Voting is done via social media platforms like Facebook. However, instead of the community contributing the funds to turn the project into reality, it is Webe Community that is funding the most popular projects (Tan 2016). The crowd only contributes to the voting and support.  

Tying it back to my personal example, my brother’s company, Chumbaka, has submitted their idea pitch to Webe Community’s crowdfunding platform and true enough their project was the winning one in year 2017. The project is known as Maker Mobile and it is one of the first four projects shortlisted for Webe Community’s support in year 2017 (Maker mobile sets to inspire Malaysian students nationwide 2017). Maker Mobile is a travelling makerspace which provides hands-on STEM-based workshops to students all across Peninsula Malaysia. The project aims to reach out to 30 schools and 900 students in 30 days.

Here’s a sharing by Nazeem Nasir, Chief Marketing Officer of Webe Community: “Through our social media pledging platfrom, webe community creates a dynamic space for social innovators to convene, collaborate and curate ideas to create a collective impact on society. We’ve already unlocked four projects this year and hope to inspire more passionate change makers to become part of the growing webe community network.”

In a nutshell, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding has enabled businesses, entrepreneurs, leaders of humanitarian efforts and all other individuals with a cause to harness the power of the crowd to build and realize future success.

References:

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge, n.d. Wikimedia Foundation, viewed 12 May 2019, <https://wikimediafoundation.org/ >

Hershkhovitz, S 2018, A Thousand Eyes Are Better Than Two, Crowd Sourcing Week, viewed 12 May 2019, <https://crowdsourcingweek.com/blog/thousand-eyes-better-than-two/ >

White, J 2017, What is Tomnod? DeepCore.Io, viewed 12 May 2019, <http://www.deepcore.io/2017/05/21/what-is-tomnod/>

Ambani, P 2014, Join the International Crowdsourced Search Effort for Malaysian Airlines MH370, Crowd Sourcing Week, viewed 12 May 2019, <https://crowdsourcingweek.com/blog/crowdsourced-search-mh370/>

Tan, KH 2016, Webe Community takes crowd backing to another level, The Star Online, viewed 12 May 2019, <https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2016/04/12/webe-community-takes-crowd-backing-to-another-level/>

Trolls, what are they? Are they the ugly folklore creature running around? Today we will not be looking into the physical trolls, instead we will be discussing about Internet trolls and Internet trolling. In Internet term, when someone is called a troll, he or she is depicted as someone who intentionally ignites a quarrel, upsets people or creates controversies on the Internet. The act of creating this discord between people either through posting inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community is known as Internet trolling, or in short, trolling (Hanson 2018). What do these trolls gain from trolling? I would say they simple want to provoke the receiver and watch them react emotionally just for their own pleasure, amusement or a specific gain.

Trolling is not a light issue

Some may see trolling as a light issue or even see it as a joke, but it’s not. Trolling is a thoughtless, cruel and harmful act. Without proper moderation, it can lead to serious and unwanted consequences. For example, the trolled victim may experience depression, attempt self-harm or worse still, suicide (Online Trolling and the effects on Young People 2018).

Turning the trolling into strength

Trolling can make or break someone, for the following part, I’m going to discuss about an individual whose story has very much inspired me. I stumbled upon her story while scrolling through my Facebook one day, and I actually watched the full 6-7 minutes of video without stopping. If you’re interested in her story and like to watch the video too, here’s a link to the video.

https://www.facebook.com/BornDifferentShow/videos/348188839153251/

The story follows Mui Thomas, 25, one of the world’s oldest survivors of a rare disease known as Harlequin Ichthyosis. Harlequin Ichthyosis is a genetic disorder that causes thickened skin over the entire body. This skin abnormality affects the shape of the eyelids, mouth, nose and also the ears and these in turn limits movement in the body, even as a fetus.

Mui had a hard time growing up. Since birth, she was given up by her biological parents and she wasn’t expected to live past three years old. But thankfully, her adoptive parents, Tina and Roger took her in when she was very young and gave her a life, a blessed life, and shaped her to become who she is today, a strong and brave woman.

Fitting in was always difficult for Mui. When she was at school, she had to be constantly accompanied by an educational assistant, making it hard for her to make friends. And the next part is where the trolling and cyber bullying comes in. Due to her skin condition and difference, she has constantly become the target of bullying, both in real life and online (Barnes 2019). There was once when the cyber bullying got too intense that the police had to get involved (They Thought Her Mom Was Burning Her. But Her TRUE Life Story Is So Uplifting! 2019). They’d tell her things like “You shouldn’t have been born” and other personal things. At one point the bullying got so horrible and in her darkest moments, Mui actually considered suicide.

However, her parents were always there for her and to counter this issue, they set up a Facebook page known as The Girl Behind The Face and her father also wrote a book with the same name, all of which to try to educate people on Mui’s rare skin disease. The page impacted many and more and more people came supporting her. She even received apology messages from people who once mistreated or bullied her.

The Mui today has turned these trolls and bullies into her strength. She embraced all of the challenges and is a living inspiration to others out there. And here’s a message from her, “Don’t let anything stop you”.

References:

Hanson, J 2018, Trolls and Their Impact on Social Media, University of Nerbaska-Lincoln, viewed 3 May 2019, <https://unlcms.unl.edu/engineering/james-hanson/trolls-and-their-impact-social-media>

Online Trolling and the effects on Young People, 2018, Wayne Denner, viewed 3 May 2019, <https://www.waynedenner.com/blog/online-trolling-and-the-effects-on-young-people/>

Barnes, A 2019, 22 Years Ago She Was Born With A Strange Condition…People Can’t Believe What She Looks Like Now, Boredom Therapy, viewed 3 May 2019, <http://boredomtherapy.com/mui-thomas/>

Activism and protest have long existed even before the rise of social media. Targeting global change, activism and protest are conducted to voice out, educate, seek justice or escalate change (Ghobadi 2018). The core of activism and protest may still remain the same to date. However, with the addition of social media, the platform on which activism and protest are spoken out has very much evolved. Activism and protest have evolved from face to face, to written and now social media (Sliwinski 2016). Instead of protesting with placards, demonstrations or rallies, activism and protest now are advocated by hashtags to seek justice.

The extensive use of hashtags has brought about a new form of activism, namely hashtag activism. This term refers to the use of Twitter’s hashtags for activism online. However, the same hashtag can be used across various social media platforms to show support for a certain cause, plan rallies or protests, share stories, connect communities or promote social change (Mbabazi and Mbadazi 2018). Some hashtags which has successfully changed the world for the better include the 2017 Women’s March, #WomensMarch, 2012’s #BlackLivesMatter, 2014’s #ASLIceBucketChallenge, 2006’s #MeToo, #PrayforParis, #Hallyu and many more. These are all notable examples of hashtag activisms that have sparked a broader discussion between communities regarding human rights, awareness, politics and trends. In short, online activism allows people from all around the world to connect in a short span of time.

#boycottbrunei on Twitter

Yes, there are tonnes and tonnes of online activism and protest going on around the world today. Nonetheless, I would like to focus on the recent boycott against Brunei-owned hotels, with the hashtag #boycottbrunei.

This social movement, or in other terms, this social activism and protest all started when Brunei imposed strict Islamic laws that make homosexual activity punishable by stoning to death. This new penal code may not be only targeting the LGBT community but it has most certainly posed a big impact and threat to the LGBT community (Herbe 2019).

The anti-LGBT laws stirred up a protest and boycott of Brunei-owned hotels, led by renowned celebrities like George Clooney, Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres. They voiced their opposition to the new laws and rallied a boycott of nine five-star hotels which has ties to Brunei’s Sultan, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah (Guardian staff and agencies 2019). These hotels include Hotel Bel-Air, The Beverly Hills Hotel, The Dorchester, 45 Park Lane, Coworth Park, Le Meurice, Hotel Plaza Athenee, Hotel Eden and last but not least Hotel Principe di Savoia.

These celebrities and politicians from Los Angeles condemned the new law and used their social media platform to urge their followers to stay away from the Sultan of Brunei’s properties. Taking one example from Ellen DeGeneres, her boycott tweet prompting her followers to “spread the word” and “rise up” had been retweeted for more than 120,000 times. This shows that social media spreads like wildfire and is able to spread the word across the world within a short period of time.

Apart from celebrities, brands and universities have also participated in the protest and boycott of Brunei-owed services after the implementation of the new law. Virgin Australia, STA Travel, and Queensland’s state government in Australia have also made moves to cut ties with Brunei. Several UK universities on the other hand are also considering to revoke honorary degrees given to Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

As a wrap, social media has broken the boarders between otherwise isolated and marginalized people. It has enabled for many activism campaign or protest to occur online. It has also increased potential audience size and strengthened these activism campaigns to seek justice and change.

References:

Sliwinski, M 2016, The Evolution of Activism: From the Streets to Social Media, LawStreet, viewed 17 April 2019, <https://lawstreetmedia.com/issues/politics/evolution-activism-streets-social-media/>

Ghobadi, S 2018, Going viral: what social media activists need to know, TheConversation, viewed 17 April 2019, <http://theconversation.com/going-viral-what-social-media-activists-need-to-know-96043>

Mbabazi, D and Mbazazi, J 2018, Hashtag activism: Powerful or pointless? The News Times Publications, viewed 17 April 2019, <https://www.newtimes.co.rw/society/hashtag-activism-powerful-or-pointless>

Herbe, AC 2019, Brunei Shariah law applies death sentence for homosexuality, Deutsche Welle, viewed 18 April 2019, <https://www.dw.com/en/brunei-shariah-law-applies-death-sentence-for-homosexuality/a-48076114>

Politics, politics, politics. What is the first thing that pops into your mind when someone mentions politics? For the older generation or political activists, they might say it’s a system whereby the ruling party evaluates or organizes a society. Some of which may also associate it with power, governance or sovereignty over a country or area (Politics 2019). And as for political engagement, it can exist in many forms. It could be in the form of voting, contributing money to a candidate or political group, volunteering for a campaign or even joining a protest and many more (Section 5: Political Engagement and Activism 2014).

The above are general illustrations of what politics and political engagement are. But let us add one more element into this discussion, which is social media and how it is being used by political parties or politicians as part of their campaigning and communicating. When social media is included in the picture, think about it. Who is the target audience? Who are the politicians engaging via this platform? The answer would be the younger generation because they are always on the Internet, be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Pinterest or many more social networking sites. These social media platforms have already become part and parcels of their lives and has established themselves as an inherent necessity. It is where they access news and information, communicate with one another and keep themselves entertained. Using this dependency of social media to their advantage, politicians can utilize social media to reach out and engage with the younger generation. In other words, the Internet is a powerful tool as it serves to engage the already engaged (Pérez 2019).

As mentioned above, the older generation or political activists are more engaged with politics around them. However, the younger generation of below 21 years of age or of 21 to 39 years of age may or may not perceive politics the same way. The following video is a young person’s guide to political participation. The video illustrates why the younger generation is not as involved in politics as the adults. They might feel that they can’t make a difference and that their vote is not going to make an impact on anything. Nonetheless, the video provides a comprehensive guide as to how they can play their part and be more politically involved.

Social Media - A platform that binds communities and amplifies their goal.

Drawing back to social media and how it can be used as an effective tool for political parties or politicians as part of their campaigning and communicating, I will be using the GE14 Postal Votes phenomenon as my example. I will be looking into the positive impact of social media in regards to political engagement. The 14th General Elections (GE14) was known as an election that brought Malaysians together (Devadason 2018), and I would say that social media played an important role in binding Malaysians and amplifying their goals.

Malaysia has been governed by Barisan Nasional (BN) ever since it gained its independence in 1957. Elections after elections for the past 60 years have always been won by the same political party, ie Barisan Nasional (BN), making the people think that it is impossible to overthrow the party (David 2018). It was no different for GE14, people were losing hope and questioned whether the government will change this time, but the results took a shocking turn. The opposition party, Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope), led by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, emerged victory in GE14. This victory set Malaysia’s first-ever transfer of power in the country’s 60 years of history.  

I will not be talking about how Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad used social media for political engagement. Instead I will touch on how social media serves as a platform to connect voters and allowed for effective communication. When the postal votes arrived late for Malaysians living overseas, many thought that their chances of participating in the election were forfeited. However, a Facebook group called ‘GE14: Postal Voters Discussion’ was created by Alex Yap together with other prominent figures such as Koh Lay Chin and Toh Lee Ann. This group coordinated and linked people with each other to send their ballots packages to Malaysians who are flying back to the country to vote. They started The Amazing Race: GE14 Edition whereby Malaysians travelling from London, Melbourne, San Francisco, Adelaide and elsewhere brought back sealed ballots of their fellow people. Runners then volunteered to get ballots to their finish lines.

So how was this logistical feat achieved? I would say that it was social media that played a humongous role in connecting people miles and miles apart. It also allowed for effective communication and coordination between communities. It bound the communities together and amplified their common goal.

References:

Politics, 2019, In Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary. Retrieved from <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politics>

Section 5: Political Engagement and Activism, 2014, Pew Research Center, viewed 7 April 2019, <https://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-5-political-engagement-and-activism/>

Pérez, FS, 2019, ‘The Internet and political engagement: Making a difference’, Academia, pp. 1-13, viewed 8 April 2019, <https://www.academia.edu/730532/The_Internet_and_political_engagement_Making_a_difference>  

Devadason, L 2018, GE14: The Election That Brought Us Together, Leaderomomics.com, viewed 8 April 2019, <https://leaderonomics.com/personal/ge-14-postal-voters-unite>

Before we dive into the debate on whether Tumblr is a blog or a social network site, it is ideal that we fully understand what each of the key terms mean.

A Blog

What’s a blog? A blog can be defined as an online diary or journal which is updated on a regular basis, written in an informal or conversational style. The content of a blog can range from texts, pictures, videos, animated GIFS or even memes. All of the posts in a blog are displayed in a reverse chronological order. With this said, upon visiting a blog, the latest post will appear first (Djuraskovic 2019).

Everybody has a story and would most probably like to share it. So with a blog which is alike that of a personal diary, it allows bloggers to express themselves and talk freely about any topic or opinion on their mind. They can opt to either share information with an exclusive group of people or the public, making it possible for them to set their blog for private or public viewing.

A Social Network Site

The next key term to look into is social network site. Again, how would we define a social network site? Facebook, Qzone, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and the list goes on and on. What do all these online platforms have in common you ask? Well, they all can be summed up as social networking sites.

With the blooming amount of users (approximately 2 billion users) using social networking sites in 2015, they are now more than sixty popular social networking sites available for the digital communities out there (Jamie 2018). Going back to the question, a social network site is an online platform that allows users to create an account, be it private or public, to interact with other users on the site. The site normally brings like-minded communities together. They are like-minded in a sense that they may share common interests, believes, principles, goals, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.

So what is Tumblr?

Being fairly unfamiliar with Tumblr myself, this video is able to give a rough idea of what Tumblr is. It is a scrapbook where users get to post texts, photos, videos and audio clips, all of which online. Users can update their feed with what interests them and this in turn draws in others with similar interest. It also allows for sharing or reblogging from one Tumblr blog to another Tumblr blog.

So is Tumblr a blog? Yes. Tumblr is one of the most basic blogging platforms available. It is less tech-savvy and easy to use (Palandro 2016). It supports text-based posts, but most Tumblr bloggers would opt for its visual aspects, namely photos, graphics, artwork, video of even GIFS. If we were to compare Tumblr with other blogging platforms such as WordPress.org, Tumblr is more of a “mirco-blog” and has more aspects of a social networking site. It is often depicted as Twitter, but with more words (O’Gara 2014). WordPress.org blogs are one of the most popular blogging platforms out there. Reason being that it comes with better customizability and functionality. However, these abilities incur a price for both its domain name and web hosting services, not to mention all the other plug-ins. On the other hand, Tumblr is totally free and ideal for quick posting and reblogging.

Moving on, is Tumblr a social network site? Again, I would say yes, it is. It is discussed earlier that the core definition of a social network site is for interaction between its communities. I will be comparing the affordances of Tumblr with existing social networking sites, ie Facebook and Instagram. These three platforms allow users to follow people, or in Facebook we call it adding people. The action of following one another creates a social connection whereby users share content which each other, be it texts, music, images, videos, personal updates or thoughts and so forth. There is more interactivity on Facebook compared to Tumblr, however, some form of interactivity still exists within Tumblr. Facebook allows you to post not only on your own profile, but also on the accounts of others. Tumblr may not have this feature but it allows users to reblog the posts of others, and also like a person’s post. In comparison with Instagram, Tumblr and Instagram are alike whereby they support hashtags and tagging posts. This makes them easily searchable in the entire database, provided that the account is public.

With all the above said, is Tumblr a blog? Yes. Is it a networking site? Yes. This is because it fulfils aspects of a blog and a social networking site, one way or another.

References

Djuraskovic, O 2019, What is a Blog? – The Definition of Blog, Blogging, and Blogger, FirstSideGuide, viewed 29 March 2019, <https://firstsiteguide.com/what-is-blog/>

Jamie, 2018, 60+ Social Networking Sites You Need to Know About, Make a Website Hub, viewed 29 March 2019, <https://makeawebsitehub.com/social-media-sites/>

Palandro, JC 2016, Should I Use WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, or Squarespace for My Blog?, Creative Market, viewed 30 March 2019, <https://creativemarket.com/blog/should-i-use-wordpress-tumblr-blogger-or-squarespace-for-my-blog>